Article 10: Abuse of Power, Shaking Down Foreign Governments to force help with trumping up charges against a rival
We hold that Donald J Trump has betrayed his oath of office, betrayed our national security and betrayed the integrity of our elections for his own personal political gain. He:
- Withheld needed material help to the Ukrainians during the height of defensive war which the Ukrainians were desperately on the defensive and outnumbered, thus betraying the purpose of appropriations meant to help them hold their country against a Russian Backed invasion.
- He did this in order to force them to trump up an investigation against Hunter Biden,
- To extort them into taking the blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election,
- And for the personal business aspirations of Trump associates.
“President Trump has betrayed his oath of office, betrayed our national security and betrayed the integrity of our elections for his own personal political gain.”
Ukraine aid was directly tied to investigations
The withholding of and delay in Aid killed people
This is a draft. Things are going so fast I'll never finish this unless I put it out in draft form and keep updating it!
Narrative
This article, when completed, this article is will probably be the primary article of impeachment.
“Do us a favor though…” – President Trump
The evidence shows that Donald J. Trump has abused the power of the presidency by using multiple levers of government – from Vice President Pence to the State Department, including Secretary Mike Pompeo, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and Ambassador Kurt Volker – to advance a scheme to undermine our 2020 elections for his political gain, and then to obstruct the congressional inquiry into that scheme.
Background
President Zelensky was elected as a reformer. According to Bill Taylor he had:
“had appointed reformist ministers and supported long-stalled anti-corruption legislation. He took quick executive action, including opening Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court, which was established under the previous presidential administration but never allowed to operate. He called snap parliamentary elections his party was so new it had no representation in the Rada — and later won an overwhelming mandate, controlling 60 percent of the seats. With his new parliamentary majority, President Zelenskyy changed the Ukrainian constitution to remove absolute immunity from Rada deputies, which had been the source of raw corruption for two decades. There was much excitement in Kyiv that this time things could be different- a new Ukraine might finally be breaking from its corrupt, post-Soviet past.
Highly Irregular Back Channel
All this should have been encouraging, yet Bill Taylor found a “confusing and unusual arrangement” for making U.S. policy towards Ukraine. He reported:
“There appeared to be two channels of U .S . policy-making and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular.”
As the Chief of Mission, Taylor had authority over the regular, formal diplomatic processes, including the bulk of the U . S . effort to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion and to help it defeat corruption. This regular channel of U.S. policy-making has consistently had strong, bipartisan support both in Congress and in all administrations since Ukraine' s independence from Russia in 1991 – until now. William Taylor found that there was a parallel:
“irregular, informal channel of U.S. policy-making with respect to Ukraine, one which included then - Special Envoy Kurt Volker, Ambassador Sondland, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and as I subsequently learned, Mr. Giuliani.”
William Taylor details how:
“This irregular channel began when Ambassador Volker, Ambassador Sondland, Secretary Perry, and Senator Ron Johnson briefed President Trump on May 23 upon their return from President Zelenskyy s inauguration. The delegation returned to Washington enthusiastic about the new Ukrainian president and urged President Trump to meet with him early on to cement the U.S. Ukraine relationship.”
In June and July, Taylor believed that they shared the same goals. On June 18th they shared a conference call negotiating a meeting between Trump and Zelensky.
Learning of Back channel efforts
However, after the June 18th meeting Volker and Sondland related to him that “the President wanted to hear from Zelensky” before scheduling the meeting in the Oval Office that Zelensky needed so much in order to protect his legitimacy and his country. When Taylor asked about this, on June 27th:
“Ambassador Sondland told me during a phone conversation that President Zelensky needed to make clear to President Trump that he, President Zelensky, was not standing in the way of “investigations.”
Then on June 28th Sondland informed Taylor that
“he did not wish to include most of the regular inter agency participants in a call planned with President Zelenskyy later that day.” [and] “said that he wanted to make sure no one was transcribing or monitoring as they added President Zelensky”
Ambassador Volker amplified what Sondland had said:
“Ambassador Volker separately told the U . S. participants that he, Ambassador Volker, planned to be explicit with President Zelensky in a one-on- one meeting in Toronto on July 2 about what President Zelensky should do to get the White House meeting.” ...
Taylor reports that Ambassador Volker noted that he would:
“relay that President Trump wanted to see rule of law , transparency, but also, specifically, cooperation on investigations to “get to the bottom of things.”
He notes that on July 10th:
“Ukrainian officials Alexander Danyliuk, the Ukrainian national security advisor, and Andriy Yermak, an assistant to President Zelensky, and Secretary Perry, then -National Security Advisor John Bolton, Ambassador Volker, and Ambassador Sondland met at the White House.”
And Taylor wasn't read into the meeting til July 19th. But on July 10th, the same day he:
“met with President Zelensky' s chief of staff, Andrei Bohdan, and then-foreign policy advisor to the president and now Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, who told me that they had heard from Mr. Giuliani that the phone call between the two presidents was unlikely to happen and that they were alarmed and disappointed. I relayed their concerns to Counselor Brechbuhl.”
Taylor writes that:
“By mid-July it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US. elections. It was also clear that this condition was driven by the irregular policy channel I had come to understand was guided by Mr. Giuliani”
Taylor was being excluded and undercut by these back-channel efforts.
“that the two decision making channels the regular and irregular were separate and at odds.”
Because:
“"The push to make President Zelenskiy publicly commit to investigations of Burisma and alleged interference in the 2016 election showed how the official foreign policy of the United States was undercut by the irregular efforts led by Giuliani," Taylor added later.
Extortion
On July 18th he found out that:
“there was a hold on security assistance to Ukraine”
The person could not say why.
“Toward the end of an otherwise normal meeting, a voice on the call the person was off-screen - said that she was from OMB and that her bosshad instructed her not to approve any additional spending of security assistance for Ukraine until further notice.”
Getting people killed
This was terrible. Ukraine was fighting a life and death struggle. He recounts that he and others:
“sat in astonishment Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training andweapons, butalso the assuranceof U . S . support. All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the President to the Chief of Staff to OMB.”
There is nothing innocent about this. People were dying and with-holding aid meant more people would die. He went to the frontier just after his July 25th meeting with Zelinsky:
Ambassador Volkerand I could see the and hostile Russian-led forces on the other side of the damaged bridgeacross the lineof contact. Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the U.S. assistance.
Tying Military Aid to “Investigations”
On July 19th he learned that during the July 10th Whitehouse meeting:
“that Ambassador Sondland had connected “investigations” with an Oval Office meeting for President Zelensky, which so irritated Ambassador Bolton that he abruptly ended the meeting”
Bolton called the extortion for investigations into Biden and 2016 “a drug deal.”
The Infamous Phone Call
All this was followed by the infamous July 25th phone call with Zelensky.
The September 25, White House released record of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, paints a damning picture of Trump abusing his office by pressing a foreign government to interfere in our 2020 elections.
In President Trump’s own words:
“I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine…. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.”
Trump laid out the demand he was extorting from the Ukrainians:
“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”
Trump leaned on Zelensky:
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.”
He also endorsed this “back-channel”
“I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I’m sure you will figure it out.”
the Pressure Campaign
This purpose of extorting help from the Ukrainians for this political campaign, also caused Trump to extort compliance from employees of the Department of State. Multiple Text messages between Ambassadors Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland and Bill Taylor paint the picture of a President who waged a months-long pressure campaign to shake down Ukraine for his own personal political gain, using a White House presidential visit and critical military assistance to Ukraine as leverage. As Bill Taylor testified:
“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” – U.S. Ambassador Bill Taylor
Text Messages show efforts to extort "deliverable"
The "deliverable" was a statement from Zelensky stating an opening of an investigation into Biden.
State Department officials discuss a White House visit in exchange for a Ukraine statement:
- [8/9/19, 5:35:53 PM] Gordon Sondland: Morrison ready to get dates as soon as Yermak confirms.
- [8/9/19, 5:46:21 PM] Kurt Volker: Excellent!!! How did you sway him? :)
- [/9/19, 5: 47:34 PM] Gordon Sondland: Not sure i did. I think potus really wants the deliverable.
- [7/21/19, 1:45:54 AM] Bill Taylor: Gordon, one thing Kurt and I talked about yesterday was Sasha Danyliuk’s point that President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics.
- [7/21/19, 4:45:44 AM] Gordon Sondland: Absolutely, but we need to get the conversation started and the relationship built, irrespective of the pretext. I am worried about the alternative.
Concerns About Ukraine Becoming an “Instrument” in U.S. Politics:
Ambassador Taylor Sought Clarification and Expressed Concerns About Withholding U.S. Military Assistance in Exchange for Launching an Investigation:
- [9/1/19, 12:08:57 PM] Bill Taylor: Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?
- [9/1/19, 12:42:29 PM] Gordon Sondland: Call me
- [9/9/19, 12:37:16 AM] Gordon Sondland: Bill, I never said I was “right”. I said we are where we are and believe we have identified the best pathway forward. Lets hope it works.
- [9/9/19, 12:47:11 AM] Bill Taylor: As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.
...
Bill Taylor Pushing Back
The Full quote of what Bill was saying to Sondland and Volker is in his Statement that:
“the message to the Ukrainians(and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in US.".... "I think it s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
This is the message that Sondland responded to after 5 hours and a talk with Donald Trump that Bill:
"incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quos of any kind."
That this was a nonsense position, was only illustrated by Sondland's lame explanation of what Trump was doing:
“When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.” And he notes that: “Ambassador Volker used the same terms several days later while we were together at the Yalta European Strategy Conference.
The trouble is that the money is not Trump's. It is that of "We the people."
Taylor explains:
“I argued to both that the explanation made no sense: the Ukrainians did not owe President Trump anything, and holding up security assistance for domestic political gain was "crazy," as I had said in my text message to Ambassadors Sondland and Volker on September 9.”
Denying a quid pro quo is a quid pro quo doesn't make it not a quid pro quo.
Bill explains:
“I had come to understand well before then that “investigations” was a term that Ambassadors Volker and Sondland used to mean matters related to the 2016 elections, and to investigations of Burisma and the Bidens”
This is a:
“It is a rancorous story about whistleblowers, Mr. Giuliani, side channels, quid pro quos, corruption, and interference in elections.”
This amounts to abuse of power.
The Whistleblower Complaint
Once again as the unclassified Whistleblower Complaint alleges what is corroborated by these witnesses:
“I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.” From Whistleblower complaint
The Whistleblower also alleged, also confirmed
“The President’ s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General Barr appears to be involved as well.”
It further maintained:
“I am also concerned that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. Government’s efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections.”
The Cover up of the Speech
Yet the whistleblower complaint never got action from the DOJ. Apparently due to malfeasance from Barr
“[S]enior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call… the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system… used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature.”
The Whistleblower affirms:
“One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.” – Unclassified Whistleblower Complaint
The Coverup of the Coverup
Despite the IG finding the allegations credible, they were sat on initially.
“On September 26, the House Intelligence Committee released the redacted version of a whistleblower complaint filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, which the IG found to be of “urgent concern” and “credible.”
And the fact remains that the White House July 25th records corroborate what the whistleblower alleged, and testimony being submitted to the House also corroborates that testimony.
“The White House’s record of the July 25 presidential call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky corroborates allegations made in the whistleblower complaint, in particular that President Trump betrayed his oath of office by using the U.S. government and outside actors to advance his scheme to shake down the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 elections.
###
Vice President Pence is entangled in this scandal. According to press reports, in September, Pence met with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Poland and “conveyed the news that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine was not going to be released amid concerns about the country’s lagging efforts to combat corruption.” The withhol- ding of aid may have been an effort to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations into President Trump’s 2020 political rival to help the president’s reelection.
Sources:
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